Stark health department steps up mosquito control efforts

Kelli Young

Monday

Jul 30, 2012 at 12:01 AMJul 30, 2012 at 9:30 AM

The recent heat wave and drought has kept the mosquitoes mostly out of sight and many Stark County residents bite free. But health officials warn that the weather is ripe for producing a bumper crop of the mosquito breed that carries the West Nile virus and other diseases.

Phil Revlock flipped open his folder to get the Ohio Department of Agriculture form he must fill out every time he starts a route.

He noted the time and date: 9:45 p.m. July 19. Then the truck’s odometer, and the Jackson Township location.

He then climbed out of the driver’s seat of the white F-150 pickup to retrieve the controller for the high-powered sprayer from the truck bed. Soon, the sprayer’s engine roared to life, sounding like an amplified lawn mower.

Revlock stepped back into the truck and rested the controller in his lap as he carefully drove onto Castlebar Street NW. As the truck inched up to 10 mph, Revlock flipped a switch, triggering a swoosh sound as a cloud of pesticide formed a trail behind the truck and slowly dissipates.

And so began the third night of the Stark County Health Department’s 2012 mosquito spraying program.

NO MOSQUITOES?

Mosquitoes arrived in Stark County early this year, thanks to 10 consecutive days of 70-degree-plus weather in March along with a steady dousing of rain. But subsequent cooler nights quickly quelled the early nuisances, and the recent heat wave and drought has kept the mosquitoes out of sight and many Stark County residents bite free.

“The mosquitoes that ruin your picnics love fresh water,” said Revlock, the mosquito program coordinator at the Stark County Health Department. “It’s been so dry, there hasn’t been any out.”

The county health department has fielded so few mosquito complaints that it waited until July 16 to start its nighttime mosquito spraying program. Last year, the department began spraying in June.

Health commissioners in Canton, Massillon and Alliance haven’t started spraying yet — and they probably won’t as long as the weather remains dry. Instead, the three city departments began in May spreading an insecticide that kills the larvae before they become breeding and biting adults on any pots of standing water, such as catch basins, road ditches and abandoned swimming pools.

Revlock said the county department began spraying to thwart the spread of another breed of mosquito, called the northern house, that’s known to carry the West Nile virus and other diseases.

“The mosquitoes that carry West Nile love the drought because the only water remaining is real polluted (stagnant),” Revlock said.

He said the extended heat also has accelerated the development from egg to adult mosquito.

WEST NILE IS BACK

On Friday, the Ohio Department of Health warned residents across the state about the risk of the West Nile virus, which can be transferred from mosquitoes to humans. State officials said they’ve seen nearly six times more positive cases of mosquitoes carrying the virus in pockets of the state compared to last year.

Robert Jennings, spokesman for the state health department, said all Ohio residents should assume that West Nile in present in their community.

“... Even if there is an absence of positives (tests for West Nile) in an area, that does not equate to an absence of risk ...,” Jennings said, adding that not all health departments send samples of mosquitoes to be tested for the virus.

In most cases, people bitten by an infected bug never get sick. But some people have reported flu-like symptoms and more severe illnesses. The state announced Friday that an 85-year-old man infected with the West Nile virus — Ohio’s first human case this year — had been recently hospitalized with encephalitis, which is a potentially fatal brain infection, in Clermont County.

In Stark County, 28 mosquito samples have tested positive for West Nile, according to the state. It’s the highest number of positive tests since 2002 — when West Nile first was detected in a Stark County mosquito.

Local officials say the state’s newest figures for Stark County likely are low. They do not include any potentially infected mosquitoes living in Massillon or Alliance because the two departments no longer send samples to the state.

“We already know the West Nile virus is out there,” said Massillon Health Commissioner Terri Argent, who has set $400 aside for the city’s mosquito control this year. “We don’t need the added expense to check and have it confirmed.”

Revlock said the county health department, which spends roughly $50,000 a year on mosquito control, learned of its first positive West Nile case on July 18. The virus was detected in the mosquitoes the department trapped on July 9 at two locations in Perry Township, near a pond 11th Street and Miles Avenue NW and in a low-lying area at the end of 15th Street SW.

The following night, on July 19, Revlock, a registered sanitarian who has been with the health department since 1995, drove the department’s pickup through the neighborhood to spray for mosquitoes. He had scheduled the mosquito spraying more than a week ago.

“I had a gut feeling (that the test would be positive for West Nile),” Revlock said.

He said the number of mosquitoes in the traps — more than 900 each — tipped him off. A trap typically captures 50 to 100 mosquitoes, he said.

SPRAYING FOR MOSQUITOES

The route Revlock created to target the neighborhood surrounding the traps that contained the infected mosquitoes covered 20 miles between Tuscarawas Street and U.S. Route 30 and Whipple Avenue and Perry Drive in Perry Township as well as from Castlebar and 22nd Street in Jackson Township to Tuscarawas Street and between Whipple and Woodlawn avenues. It followed mainly residential streets, and kept away from the busy thoroughfares, such as Whipple Avenue.

“When we find West Nile, I put a (half-mile) radius around where I trapped them,” Revlock said. “These mosquitoes don’t go far from where they are born.”

About a half-hour into the route, around 10:15 p.m., Revlock spotted a woman standing with her dog in the front yard on Miles Avenue. He switched off the sprayer and slowed the truck to a stop. The woman who had heard the roaring engine seemed to recognize the truck. She took the dog back in the house.

Revlock flipped back on the spray and proceeded down the road.

“The dosage is such a low rate that it won’t hurt people,” Revlock said. “But we try to turn it off if we see someone. It’s noisy enough that they usually hear and go inside.”

Revlock said he’s most vigilant for beehives. He gets a list every year from the state that shows the registered beehives in Stark County, and then marks them on the route maps so the drivers know where not to spray.

Last year, the department began using a more environmentally friendly spray called Duet, an oil-based product that rapidly breaks down in sunlight into carbon dioxide and water vapor.

“It’s one of the safest chemicals you can get,” he said.

He said the spray is far different than any bug repellent people spray on their clothes. Duet first agitates the mosquitoes to get them out of the bushes and flying in the air. It then stuns them and kills them. Since it relies on contacting the mosquito, Revlock said, the department waits to begin spraying until after dusk when mosquitoes are most active and why the department stop spraying when it rains.

“Mosquitoes go back in when it rains,” he said.

RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY

Just after 10:30 p.m., rain drops started tapping the truck windshield.

“Rain, that’s not good,” Revlock said.

He reluctantly stopped on Manor Avenue — two streets shy of the location where the infected mosquitoes were found. He once again pulled out the state’s documentation form and noted: Rain at 10:45 p.m.